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I am using the acmsmall to do an essay; I have a custom cls and I've re-defined all of {title, author, etc}font to be more appropriate. However, I am having trouble getting the normal font to be anything but 10pt. If I set \fontsize{26}{30}\selectfont in my document it works, but how do I get it in the cls?

\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
\ProvidesClass{essay}[2015/04/01 Essay]

\LoadClass{acmsmall}

% these don't appear to do anything
\renewcommand\@ptsize{2}
\renewcommand\normalfont{\fontsize{16}{18}}
\renewcommand\normalsize{16}
\renewcommand{\normalsize}{\@setfontsize\normalsize\@xpt{26\p@}}
\renewcommand{\small}{\@setfontsize\small\@ixpt{26\p@}}
\@setfontsize\normalsize\@xpt{26\p@}

% title works
\renewcommand\titlefont{\fontfamily{\sfdefault}\fontsize{16}{18}\selectfont\bfseries}
\renewcommand\paragraphfont{\fontsize{16}{18}\selectfont\itshape}

% debug
\newcommand\FontSize{{font size: \f@size~pt}}

\endinput

tex,

\documentclass{essay}
\title{Title~\FontSize}
\begin{document}
\maketitle

Normal~\FontSize.

\end{document}

gives,

Title font size: 16 pt
Normal font size: 10 pt.
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4
  • Welcome! Please always post a minimal working example (MWE) to help others to help you effectively. Try \AtBeginDocument{...}. However, this is a hack and you should not really do it like this. Since I don't know where the class is to be found, it is hard to give a good answer. But do you really want 26pt for the default font size for an essay?
    – cfr
    Apr 4, 2015 at 3:06
  • \AtBeginDocument hack works for me; thanks. You don't do all your documents in 26pt? :] (I wanted to differentiate between 10pt.)
    – Neil
    Apr 4, 2015 at 23:38
  • Why are you using this class for an essay? That is, if you are not writing a paper for that journal, why are you using their class? There are more constructive exercises in frustration to be had than fighting a class which is designed to disallow just the kind of changes you want to make.
    – cfr
    Apr 4, 2015 at 23:42
  • It's just so pretty.
    – Neil
    Apr 4, 2015 at 23:44

1 Answer 1

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3

This is not a bug but a feature.

Publishers' styles, unlike generic article etc , usually do not allow the users to change body fonts. All papers in the given journal must have matching look. I usually add to my classes commissioned by publishers some warnings when the class sees an attempt to invoke options like 12pt: "please do not do this".

Full disclosure: I did not write acmsmall, but I patched it for ACM.

For a derived class you need to redefine \normalsize, \small etc. Look how it is done in base class and change accordingly.

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